GERALD FEIL:
There was a tremendous amount of enthusiasm among the cast. I never for a moment saw anything resembling a prima donna attitude. Everybody worked very hard. Things would be demanded of the actors that wouldn't normally be demanded of actors, particularly semi-stunts that were complicated. I also thought the actors, as a group, were very generous to each other, which was unusual. There was no feeling that these were inexperienced actors or young actors. Everybody was just working hard. Steve Miner casts his movie and hires his key people very maturely. He leaves them alone to do their work, in the best possible way, which is the hallmark of every good director. And he always came to the set, not with an expectation that something might go wrong, but prepared in case something did, such as having shots ready we could make if the technology didn't do what it was suppose to do. He protected us all from pressures that we didn't need to feel in order to do our work. He was extremely patient. The few frustrations there were had nothing to do with the actors or the director—they just had to do with the enormity of the undertaking. It's one of the reasons I think the picture came out as good as it did.
The Friday the 13h films have always been well known for their extended third-act climaxes, usually featuring an isolated heroine, left alone with only her wits (and a few handy weapons) to defeat Jason—at least until the next sequel. Eschewing a major rainstorm sequence for the first time in the series, Part 3 instead made effective use of its man-made sets and their natural surroundings, which enlivened a nearly 20-minute chase sequence spread across lodge, barn, van and lake. Part 3 also saw the next evolution of Jason Voorhees in Richard Brooker's portrayal of the character, with the hunched, hulking ex-acrobat displaying a more brutish and methodical intelligence than that of the feral Jason seen in Part 2. But as the already-problem-plagued production of Part 3 stretched over-schedule and over-budget, the personalities of cast and crew frequently clashed. All struggled to maintain a sense of on-set levity as the seemingly-endless nights progressed, particularly in completing the film's requisite creative murder sequences amid the considerable technical demands of the 3-D format.
STEVE SUSSKIND:
I'm the first kill in the movie—I get whacked in the chest with a cleaver. They had me rigged with a blood line across my chest over a piece of balsa wood that would greet the blade. Everybody behind the camera was wearing garbage bags because the blood was supposed to go everywhere. Then they call "Action!" I open the door, out comes the cleaver, it hits me square where it's supposed to and… only a little trickle. The tube that carried the blood ended up buried under the balsa wood. So all the blood went inside and all over my body. It was a mess. And not a really great omen, I guess.
"In the screenplay, my character had a different name, 'Derek.' But they changed it to 'Rick,' because it's one less syllable," remembers Paul Kratka. " And therefore more scream-able."
ROBB WILSON KING:
There are a lot of things that you have to be attentive to in terms of props to make the 3-D really effective. We created a whole arsenal for Jason to pick from, and played a lot of tricks with angles and oversized killing instruments. To seamlessly edit those things was difficult, because you don't want to give the illusion away. We often shot Jason holding a weapon four different ways, with three different sizes of instruments. And then there were constant rewrites to enhance it. It was pretty far out. We would often create on the spot. "Let's try this! We can kill him this way! How can we do that?" And don't forget, we didn't have CGI back then. Our gags were all on wires, so we had to shoot around them—find a way to light them and hide the wires.
RICHARD BROOKER:
The kills were probably the hardest things we had to shoot because the 3-D process necessitated so many multiple takes. It was not uncommon to do a simple stabbing sequence 15 times. We spent hours and hours on the eyeball squeeze alone. And that one scene where I stab the girl with a poker? That one single shot took 36 takes to get it right. I'm standing in front of these hot lights with all of this makeup on, and wearing these heavy clothes, just dripping with sweat. And all I keep hearing is, "Do it again!" I was there until two o'clock in the morning, just poking this girl.
CHERI MAUGANS:
The clothesline stuff was done outside on location in Newhall, but we shot the death scenes in a studio—which was weird, because it was like six months later. So I worked at the very beginning of the film and the very end. I found the experience of working with the special effects makeup a riot. We had to get to the makeup shop at six o'clock in the morning. And there I am, drinking my coffee, next to a dummy of Steve Susskind just dangling in front of me, covered in blood with a hatchet in his chest. All these macabre things—it was hilarious.
My death got all screwed up, at least from what they wanted it to be. Richard Brooker was on one side of the door and I was on the other side. His hand had to break through a square opening that had a screen on it. A special effects guy was on his side, pumping the blood through a collapsible knitting needle—it was rigged so when I opened my mouth the needle came out, and was also collapsible the other way. The whole effect was supposed to coordinate, in one shot—the hand came through the screen, grabbed me by the face and the knitting needle collapsed, and the blood was supposed to come out and drench me, then I fall to the floor. So we start the take, the needle collapsed, and they start the blood pumping out of my mouth. And I was like dying forever, then lying on the ground forever. No one yelled "Cut!" But you don't want to open your eyes because you don't know what the heck they're still doing. So I opened my eye a little bit and saw Steve Miner and the whole crew standing there, looking at me with all this worry, wondering if I was okay. It ended up that I got soaked, absolutely drenched in blood. But, strangely, you never saw it on the screen. It all poured down my neck on my robe, out of frame. I don't think that was their intention.
CATHERINE PARKS:
My death scene with the spear has the first shot of Jason with the hockey mask in it. And it is just amazing to me, because there were so many interesting kills in the film—I never imagined when we did it that it would become this big iconic moment. They made a plaster mold of my head, and then cut it so it fit the shape of my face. Then they took a socket and put it in the center of the eye, with the female part of a screw, and then screwed the arrow in. And I never actually get hit with the spear—it's already attached to my eye when they cut to it, then me falling back into the water. It was difficult because we had to shoot it in one take because the prosthetics would be ruined once I hit the water. The latex would blow up like a balloon and then just slide right off my face. They also wanted to put a wetsuit on under my clothes to protect me, but I said, "Absolutely not! It's going to make me look fat! I'll suffer." It was a little difficult wading in the water, because I didn't know what was down there in that little lake. And the water was freezing. But it really was a lot of fun.
GLORIA CHARLES:
When they hung me by the neck in the rafters for my death, that was a real pitchfork. The two prongs in the middle were plastic, and collapsable, but the two outside were metal, so they could catch the wood beam behind me. The pitchfork was just wide enough to go around my neck. So it would have been bad if, in fact, Richard had been off even a little bit—it was shot very carefully. Still, it only felt like playing in my grandmother's attic—the hard part for me was to try not to giggle while I was hanging up there, in front of all the crew.
Producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. grabs a catnap on the set .
LARRY ZERNER:
Let me just point out that mine is one of the worst death scenes in Friday the 13th history. It was always supposed to be an off-screen death, but it never really made sense because the audience is supposed to think Shelly's just joking again, even though everyone obviously knows he's not because at that point Jason's killed a bunch of people already. And people always ask me, "Why did Shelly go into the barn by himself?" Well, why wouldn't you? None of the characters at that point knew there was a
killer on the loose, so it's not like there's any reason to be scared. But it is one of the more of the mundane kills. I did want a more violent death. Everyone else got to have a little more fun. I mean, the eyeball shot in 3-D—in the theater, it pops out and the entire audience jumps, it's a great moment!
I did think the actual makeup effect was good, if shooting it was not the most comfortable time. It took half a night to set it up. By the time we were ready it was two o'clock in the morning, and cold. They had to wet me down because my hair was supposed to be wet. There's an appliance on my neck which looks like an open throat cut, and two balloons running behind my back through a hole cut in my scuba suit, and vials of blood are attached to be pumped out. Early on they were going to do a spurt of blood in 3-D at the camera, but they thought it was too much. When we finished, I was covered in red—all the blood ran down the wetsuit. So that's the fun part of acting. The good ol' days!
NICK SAVAGE:
I had to go into the makeup shop a week early so they could make a cast of my arm and stuff it with bloody meat. That's what Richard cut off. Though it's funny, when we were actually shooting it, I wasn't there—it was a dummy. It is only a cut back to a shot of me with the blood and stuff all over. It's Hollywood, you know. But that moment when Jason chops my arm off… it really did look real. I had to check my own arm after I saw it! Even now, children stop me in the supermarket, touch my arm, and go, "Are you okay?"
DAVID KATIMS:
They did some really interesting, pronounced makeup on me that you never saw. The headband that I wore was scorched, my face had skin that was flailing off of it, blood was dripping out and it was very gory. I don't know why they didn't use it, but it's a shame it didn't make it into the finished film.
TRACIE SAVAGE:
The night we shot my death, I'll never forget it. Because everything had to be absolutely perfect. I had to have a body cast made of my upper torso—literally four hours in makeup. And they attached this foam replica body to my neck, and that was hours more to set up. Then they cut a hole in the hammock, and I sat down below, with this fake body stretched out in front of me, and then they would stick the knife up through where the fake chest was. And I couldn't really turn my head or the makeup would buckle. It was terribly uncomfortable. It was two o'clock in the morning., I was cold and scantily clad, and we were working in an unheated structure. And once you stick a knife through the foam appliance and blood spurts out, it's kind of hard to reuse it.
PETER SCHINDLER:
It was really hot on the set because we had so many lights. Poor Tracie Savage was sitting on her knees under the hammock beneath a fake body and latex neck. Well, the knife starts to come up, but instead of cutting through the fake neck, it just made a sort of tent—because the latex was melting. And there was no way to get the latex to cool down enough in the time we had to shoot the scene. So that's why it never quite looked right.
STEVE MINER:
That effect is one Tom Savini designed and used in the original Friday the 13th, and that we reused in Part 3. And at the beginning of the scene, we show a Fangoria with an article about Tom Savini. That's a sneaky little homage to Tom we put in there.
PETRU POPESCU:
I looked at all the slasher movies that had knives, of which there were a good number. And almost all of them had at least one shot that is a below-upward kill—an arm reaches up around and holds someone's head and the knife comes through. The knife gleams at the camera at least once, with light from either the background or above. And very often the killer is not even in the shot, only the arm—the knife is the only thing that matters. Of course, from the point of view of the victim of a knife attack, what are you going to look at? You're going to look at that knife. You're not going to even look at the knife-wielder, because it's more important to know where that weapon is going to hit you and when.
It's interesting—I don't think we pay much attention to physical objects in our everyday lives, but if you go to a movie, and there's a close-up of a coffee cup, it's extremely noticeable. These parts of these movies are absolutely critical. I think that is the only appeal. I don't remember the faces of the actors. And it is voyeuristic. You want to see how people are killed because there is a certain feeling of apprehension lurking inside us all, a voice that wonders if we'll ever be a victim of a violent crime sometime in our own life.
Jason (Richard Brooker) is put through his three-dimensional paces on the set of Part 3.
STEVE MINER:
The toughest shot, and the one everyone remembers, was the eyeball. We needed the effect of an eyeball popping out into the audience. So, the makeup effects people put the eyeball on the end of a rod. When Jason squeezes the fake head, we just pushed the rod out to the camera lens. Then, I stood in back of the camera and told them to push it out in front of me. But, I closed one eye and didn't see the rod. We did it six or seven times until I realized that the 3-D system has two lenses, so the audience would see around the eyeball and see the rod.
PAUL KRATKA:
About halfway through the shoot we switched to all nights, and filmed the scene where Jason grabs me and crushes my head and my eyeball pops out. It was three o'clock in the morning, and it wasn't like we were on a soundstage. We were out in the mountains, with crickets and the cold, and you're walking from the trailer to where you're shooting, and it's some dark, unlit trail, and you've been on this film that has all this weirdness. Then they wheel out this mannequin of my upper body, head and face on a dolly. It looks exactly like me. It's very flesh-like, only collapsible so they can shoot multiple takes of the head crushing. That was spooky.
DANA KIMMELL:
That really was a challenge in itself—to make it scary because filming it wasn't a scary situation at all. That's probably the question I get asked the most by people: "My gosh, were you frightened?" But I just look at them and say, "No, it was really fun!" And it was awesome to see how the special effects were put together, like in Paul's case, what they did to make the eyeball pop out of his head. I was really fascinated by the mechanics of it all.
CATHERINE PARKS:
The scariest thing about making the movie for me was just getting to the set. We had to go through Antelope Valley, which was quite a drive. And this was long before any of those roads were really improved and built up. We would be driving around these hairpin turns with signs that said, "Beware! Falling rocks." And there would be carcasses of cars that didn't quite make it, littered across the side of the road…
GLORIA CHARLES:
You hear all these horror stories about crazy, wild, screaming directors. But Steve Miner was the most mellow, confident, calm person I'd ever met. So I totally trusted him. But then he told me I'm going to be swinging from the loft of a barn. And I'm like, "So, is this going to be stuntperson doing this, or me?" And he said, "Are you afraid of heights?" And I said, "Oh, no, not at all!" And I was totally lying—I am absolutely afraid of heights. But I took this as an opportunity to face that fear. So he let me do the stunt. I still think it was scarier for me to do than it is to watch it in the film.
SANDI LOVE:
What was interesting was how we would surmount problems as they arose. Grace under pressure, sure. Fun, no. The most trying part for me was having to soak the clothes in blood every evening. The cast left one by one, after they were killed off, so they didn't have to deal with the next death. It may be fun when your death seems so far away—I guess my prospective has changed. I've done a great deal of traveling since then, and seen real fear and violence. After 16-hour days, every day, it does get to you. Your mind plays tricks when you're tired. But at least hearing that the actors had nothing but positive recollections does make me smile.
RICHARD BROOKER:
The worst thing about wearing the Jason makeup appliances was that we'd finish at six o'clock in the morning and everybody was tired and wanted to go home, and the makeup crew guys would rip it off my face like you wouldn't believe. My face was just raw. I'd soak
my skin in some sort of orange liquid to soften it up, then I'd go home and go to sleep, and then come back and do it all over again. After two weeks my skin was like sandpaper.
DOUG WHITE:
Richard was wonderful. An extraordinarily patient person when it came to the makeup. And he skulked really well. But the funny thing was, he was an ex-circus performer, and very funny, so in person, he was hardly menacing.
DAVID KATIMS:
My memory of Richard was that he was the antithesis of terror. He's British and has this very refined voice, and every once in a while he would walk around with this hockey mask on, smoking a pipe and going, "Who am I going to kill now?"
"I liked Chris because she fought back," says Dana Kimmell. "I didn't want her to be a wimp. I wanted her to be someone who could survive. And she did."
Richard Brooker was a wonderful actor. I remember having a really nice conversation with him, and I was sympathetic to how uncomfortable his mask was. People had to feed him, because he couldn't find his mouth. It was awfully painful. Yet he was very quiet about it. You never heard him moaning or groaning or anything. And then once they put the hockey mask, it changed everything. He was very charming.
RICHARD BROOKER:
I went up to Steve Miner halfway through the production and said, "Can we just have a little scene in here where my face shows, so my mother actually believes I'm in the movie?" He goes, "No, no, no. You can't do that." So the next day he comes onto the set and he's carrying this little bag, and he says, "Here's a present for you." And I open the bag and it's a t-shirt, and on the back it says, "I Played the Monster in Friday the 13th." He says, "Wear this when you go back to see your mom."
DANA KIMMELL:
There wasn't a whole lot of time for levity—it became a sort of survival thing. We'd get there at four or five in the afternoon. Then it was long nights, and then we'd leave at six in the morning and go home and try to sleep in the middle of the day and then come back. Foil in the windows so you could sleep all day and all that. And by the last couple of weeks, when it was just me and Richard, it was only emotional stuff—running and screaming. It got a little stressful toward the end. Just doing things over and over and over, partly because of the 3-D. And we were over budget at the time.
Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (Enhanced Edition) Page 26
